What Do Data Analysts Actually Do? (Day in the Life Reality Check)

What Do Data Analysts Actually Do? The Unfiltered Version

Everyone wants to know what data analysts actually do. Not the job description version—the real, day-to-day reality.

I've been an analyst since 2004. Let me tell you what I actually spend my time on.

The Core Activities

1. Answering Questions With Data

At its simplest, analysts answer questions. "Why did sales drop last month?" "Which marketing channel is most effective?" "What should we focus on next quarter?"

I translate business questions into data queries, analyze the results, and communicate findings.

Some questions take 10 minutes. Some take a week. The skill is knowing which deserves which level of effort.

2. Building and Maintaining Reports

A significant chunk of my time goes into reporting. Dashboards, weekly summaries, monthly reviews.

Not the most exciting work, but essential for keeping the business informed. The reports I built 5 years ago are probably still running (and probably breaking when someone changes a column name in the source system).

3. Data Cleaning (Lots of It)

Here's the dirty secret of analytics: I spend most of my time cleaning data.

Fixing formats. Handling missing values. Reconciling conflicting sources. Figuring out why two systems that should have the same numbers don't.

It's unglamorous but unavoidable. Every analyst I know spends 60-70% of their time on data wrangling.

4. Meetings and Communication

Analysis without communication is just data hoarding.

I spend considerable time presenting findings, explaining methodology, and helping stakeholders understand implications. Some days I'm in back-to-back meetings walking people through dashboards.

What the Job Description Doesn't Tell You

You'll repeat yourself a lot - The same questions come up quarterly from different people
You'll make recommendations that get ignored - Organizational politics trump data more often than you'd like
You'll spend hours on analysis that never gets used - Priorities change, projects get shelved
You'll become the person everyone asks "quick questions" - These are never quick

A Typical Day (Reality Check)

9:00 AM - Check Slack for overnight fires

9:15 AM - Start working on that analysis due Friday

9:30 AM - "Quick question" derails that plan

10:30 AM - Back to the analysis

11:00 AM - Meeting about last week's dashboard

12:00 PM - Lunch while fixing a broken report

1:00 PM - Finally making progress on the analysis

2:00 PM - Data cleaning (the source file format changed)

4:00 PM - Another "quick question"

5:00 PM - Actually finish the analysis

This isn't every day. But it's a lot of days.

Is It Worth It?

Despite the less glamorous parts, I love this career.

The satisfaction of finding insights that drive real business decisions never gets old. The moment when a stakeholder says "oh, I didn't realize that—we need to change our approach" makes all the data cleaning worthwhile.

What do data analysts do? We make organizations smarter, one question at a time.

Common Questions About What Data Analysts Do

Q: Do data analysts code all day?

No. I write SQL queries frequently, but actual programming is maybe 30% of my time. The rest is problem-solving, communication, and (unfortunately) meetings.

Q: Is the job mostly Excel or is that outdated?

Excel is still heavily used, especially for presenting results to non-technical stakeholders. I also use SQL, Python, Tableau, and whatever tool gets the job done.

Q: Do you work alone or with a team?

Both. I do a lot of independent analysis, but I collaborate constantly with other analysts, engineers, product managers, and business stakeholders. Analytics is a team sport.